O
ften in individual sports like running, the executives are lifers whose world has revolved around that particular discipline. Not so for Ronnie Tucker, now two years at the TCS New York City Marathon’s operating group, New York Road Runners.
Ronnie Tucker
NEW YORK ROAD RUNNERS
She’s been a runner for 25 years, but she’s also a hockey mom and has worked for and with a variety of groups in and out of sports, ranging from marketing agencies to properties — including the U.S. Tennis Association and Pepsi.
Perhaps it was the diverse outlook that helped her embrace the unconventional new title sponsor for the race: Tata Consultancy Services, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate Tata. November’s race is the first for that group, which is using the event for business-to-business marketing, a sharp contrast from other sponsors that use the marathon to reach consumers.
“With Tata, we are getting the chance to reimagine the marathon,” said Tucker, vice president of marketing and digital for NYRR. “Things will look different out there.”
Tucker arrived at NYRR at an interesting time, to put it lightly. Her first marathon, or what would have been her first, became the first canceled, due to Hurricane Sandy.
“You learned a lot about yourself from a physical and emotional standpoint,” she said of those trying days in 2012, when the group was under attack in some quarters for trying, unsuccessfully, to go forward with the race. “We as an organization really came together.”
— Daniel Kaplan
